Vladimir Sharov

Born on 7 April 1952 in Moscow. Son of the writer A. I. Sharov (Nuremberg; 1909–1984). Graduated from the Faculty of History of Voronezh University (1977). Candidate of Historical Sciences (1984). Worked as a laborer, a worker in an archaeological expedition, and a literary secretary. Debuted as a poet in 1979 (in the journal Novy Mir). His first novel, Trace in Trace: Chronicle of One Family in Thoughts, Commentaries, and Principal Dates, appeared in the pages of the journal Ural (1991, nos. 6–8). The novel Rehearsal was first published in the journal Neva (1992, nos. 1–2). The publication of Sharov’s third novel, Before and During, in Novy Mir (1993, nos. 3–4) caused a literary scandal unlike any other, when members of the editorial board of Novy Mir, S. Kostyrko and I. Rodnyanskaya, stated in an extended article, “Sweepings from the House,” their categorical rejection of the philosophy and poetics of Sharov’s prose. Since then, Sharov’s prose has been published exclusively in the journal Znamya (“Shouldn’t I Pity,” 1995, no. 12; “The Old Girl,” 1998, nos. 8–9; “The Resurrection of Lazarus,” 2002, nos. 8–9). “Vladimir Sharov,” writes a reviewer for Ezhenedelny Zhurnal, “can rightly be called one of the most brilliant writers of our time. His novels contain everything needed to become favorite reading for Russian intellectuals.” Speaking of Sharov’s latest novel, a reviewer for the journal Politbyuro noted: “Like all of Sharov’s books, The Resurrection of Lazarus is a mini-epic—a narrative canvas of colossal scope somehow crammed into three hundred pages of extraordinarily dense text devoid of compositional voids. A novel-fantasmagoria whose action spans the entire twentieth century and whose geographical range extends from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok only pretends to be a historical work. The events of genuine Russian history of the past century are recast by Sharov in such an astonishing way that there is simply nothing left to be surprised at.” Sharov’s works have